Closing Down Germany’s Nuclear Plants ‘Huge Strategic Error’ Says International Energy Agency

“Germany made a huge strategic error” by rushing to shut down its nuclear power plant fleet, a mistake which has exacerbated the energy crisis in Europe, the director of the International Energy Agency, IEA, said, which is a statement he should have made when the Germany ENERGIEWENDE was started in 2000.

In 2000, Germany’s politics-inspired ENERGIEWENDE to reduce CO2 led to: 1) closure of perfectly good, fully-paid-for nuclear plants, that provided about 23% of Germany’s annual electricity production, which is produced regardless of the weather, unlike expensive, grid stability-disturbing wind and solar, 2) refusal to start domestic shale gas production, which led to imports of extremely expensive LNG from unstable countries 3) closure of perfectly good, fully-paid-for coal plants using domestic coal.

Rectifying the German nuclear situation would require at least $250 to $300 billion and at least two decades to put into service, say, (25) 1200 MW power plants, a total of 30,000 MW, at about 8.5 to 10 million per installed MW, just for Germany.

As predicted by energy systems analysts as early as 2000, this unwise wind, solar, etc., investment and other actions has led to the impoverishment of the UK, Germany, Ireland, Spain, Denmark, etc., during the past 30 years.

Instead, Germany declared it wanted to become carbon-free and denuclearize at the same time, leaving it plugging the gaps around its experiments with renewables with imported gas and oil, largely from the Russian Federation, until the Ukraine War began.

BTW, increased CO2 ppm is an essential gas to increase green flora and fauna, reduce desert areas, such as the Sahara, and increase crop yields to better feed 8 billion people. An optimum level for flora is about 1000 to 1200 ppm, according to results in research labs and greenhouses. At present, CO2 ppm is near its lowest level in 600 million years.

Speaking to German newspaper the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, IEA boss Fatih Birol said of the temporary closure of the Straits of Hormuz in the Gulf: “I don’t get the impression that political decision-makers have yet grasped the magnitude of the problem we are facing”, and that Europe would have been in a stronger position with more nuclear.

He said of Germany: “Germany made an historic, huge strategic error—I’ve been saying this for almost 20 years like a broken record—by shutting down its nuclear power plants…

The situation wouldn’t be so bad today, if Germany still had the nuclear plants”. The paper paraphrased further comments from the economist, stating that:

…he hopes all the more that the right lessons will now be learned from this crisis. Forty percent of all current nuclear power plants in the world were built in response to the oil crisis of the 1970s.

For all his warning against European nations artificially limiting, by means of subsidies and mandates, their menu of options for power generation, Birol does not quite understand how long it takes, and the huge costs, to bring new oil and gas fields on line, and to build the power plants to generate abundant, low-cost electricity..

It would take decades and hundreds of $billions for European nations to increase domestic oil and gas production with new drilling.

It would take decades and hundreds of $billions for European nations to bring Small Modular Reactors (SMRs), to come online.

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NUCLEAR PLANTS TOO EXPENSIVE?

https://www.windtaskforce.org/profiles/blogs/nuclear-plants-too-exp...

By Willem Post

In France, the turnkey cost of the 1,600 MW Flamanville plant was $13.7 billion, or $8,563/installed MW

Plants built by Russia, China and South Korea are about $5,500/installed MW

Expensive nuclear plant building is strictly a “rules-based” Western thing.

Nuclear Plants by Russia

According to the IAEA, during the first half of 2023, a total of 407 nuclear reactors are in operation at power plants across the world, with a total capacity at about 370,000 MW

Nuclear was 2546 TWh, or 9.2%, of world electricity production in 2022

https://www.windtaskforce.org/profiles/blogs/batteries-in-new-england

Rosatom, a Russian Company, is building more nuclear reactors than any other country in the world, according to data from the Power Reactor Information System of the International Atomic Energy Agency, IAEA.

The data show, a total of 58 large-scale nuclear power reactors are currently under construction worldwide, of which 23 are being built by Russia.

In Hungary, Pak 1: 4 existing VVR-440 reactors, Pak 2: 2 VVR-1200 reactors, turnkey cost $14 billion, or $5,833/kW

In Egypt, 4 reactors, each 1,200 MW = 4,800 MW for $28.75 billion, or about $5,990/kW,

As per a bilateral agreement, signed in 2015, approximately 85% of it is financed by Russia, and to be paid for by Egypt under a 22-year loan with an interest rate of 3%.
That cost is at least 40% less than US/UK/EU

In Turkey, 4 reactors, each 1,200 MW = 4,800 MW for $20 billion, or about $4,200/kW, entirely financed by Russia. The plant will be owned and operated by Rosatom

In India, 6 VVER-1000 reactors, each 1,000 MW = 6,000 MW at the Kudankulam Nuclear Power Plant.

Capital cost about $15 billion. Units 1, 2, 3 and 4 are in operation, units 5 and 6 are being constructed

In Iran, Rosatom started site preparation for a nuclear power plant at the Bushehr site.

Phase 1: Unit 1 went online in 2012.

Phase 2: 2 VVER-1000 units, each 1050 MW. Construction started March 2017. Units 2 and 3 to be completed in 2024 and 2026.

In Bangladesh: 2 VVER-1200 reactors = 2400 MW at the Rooppur Power Station

Capital cost $12.65 billion is 90% funded by a loan from the Russian government. The two units generating 2400 MW are planned to be operational in 2024 and 2025. Rosatom will operate the units for the first year before handing over to Bangladeshi operators. Russia will supply the nuclear fuel and take back and reprocess spent nuclear fuel.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rooppur_Nuclear_Power_Plant

In Kazakhstan: 2 VVER-1200, generation 3+, reactors = 2400 MW near Uiken on Lake Balkhash

Online by 2035. Turnkey capital cost $14 to $15 billion

Russia is the only country with nuclear powered ice breakers.

Rosatom, created in 2007 by combining several Russian companies, usually provides full service during the entire project life, such as training, new fuel bundles, refueling, waste processing and waste storage in Russia, etc., because the various countries likely do not have the required systems and infrastructures

Remember, these nuclear plants reliably produce steady electricity, at reasonable cost/kWh, and have near-zero CO2 emissions

In the US, they have about 0.90 capacity factors, and last 60 to 80 years

Nuclear does not need counteracting plants. They can be designed as load-following, as some are in France

Wind: Offshore wind systems produce variable, unreliable power, at very high cost/kWh, are far from CO2-free, on a mine-to-hazardous landfill basis.
They have lifetime capacity factors, on average, of about 0.40; about 0.45 in very windy places

They last about 15 to 20 years in a saltwater environment
High W/S presence on the grid creates significant disturbances on the National Grid, that requires:

1) Greatly reinforcing/extending the grid to connect the far-flung W/S systems

2) More and more of traditional power plant capacity (MW)) to quickly vary their outputs, on a less than minute-by-minute basis, 24/7/365, to inefficiently counteract the huge variations (MWh) of W/S electricity generation (more Btu/kWh, more c/kWh, more CO2/kWh, more wear and tear/kW)

3) A lot of land and sea area,

4) Curtailment payments, i.e., pay owners for what they could have produced

Major Competitors: Rosatom’s direct competitors, according to PRIS data, are three Chinese companies: CNNC, CSPI and CGN.
They are building 22 reactors, but it should be noted, they are being built primarily inside China, and the Chinese partners are building five of them together with Rosatom.

American and European companies are lagging behind Rosatom, by a wide margin,” Alexander Uvarov, a director at the Atom-info Center and editor-in-chief at the atominfo.ru website, told TASS.

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SMALL MODULAR REACTORS

https://www.windtaskforce.org/profiles/blogs/small-modular-reactors

By Willem Post

SMRs sounds good, but the electricity cost/kWh would be at least 2 times gas fired CCGT plants.

Such plants are up to 60% efficient, have very low CO2/kWh.

It would take at least 5 to 8 years to build SMRs at a rate of say 50 units per year, because the US no longer has the thousands of educated and trained nuclear engineering professionals capable of designing any nuclear plants.
The US lost that capability after Three Mile Island in March, 1979, more than 45 years ago.

Also, the US has not enough working-aged people who 1) know how to do more complicated stuff, 2) care enough to do it, 3) have the work ethic and mental discipline, or 4) are otherwise inspired to make themselves useful.

Factories have 400,000 unfilled jobs, but there are few skilled, ambitious people to take them.
People have weird expectations; they want to make big bucks doing nothing.

The US has a total lack of Science/Technology/Engineering/Mathematics (STEM) professionals who are in high places to call the shots.

The US has been filling the shortfall with Chinese, Indian, etc., STEM folks.

The vacuum at the top was filled by lawyer/liberal arts/enviro functionaries who know next to nothing, except obstruction; Hochul, Newsom, etc., are demagogue-style examples.

At present, no country is set up to produce, say 50 SMRs per year, at 200 MW each.

China, Russia, South Korea, and the US, with large command/control economies, would be the only countries able set up the required A-to-Z infrastructures.

A 500 MW (2 units at 250 MW each) CCGT power plant can be built in two years, at a turnkey cost of $2000/kW.

New York State has finally agreed to allow the building of the gas pipeline from Pennsylvania to New England.

If four countries were building 50 SMRs/y each, it would require:

Increased uranium mining,

Processing the uranium into fuel bundles,

Constructing factories to produce components and subassemblies,

Constructing factories for assembling the final units near harbors.

Shipping the assembled unis to the site, likely by ship or barge,

Selection and preparation of the site near harbors,

Adding the remaining balance of plant systems,

Plant test operation of each subsystem,

Connecting the plant to the grid, with switchyard,

Test operation of the entire plant,

Commissioning the plant to produce electricity at design output

AI systems require lots of steady electricity

Each major AI system should be required to have its own power plant

Any SMRs shipped to Africa and other such areas, would be turnkey-built in Europe, the US, Russia, Korea, China, and then shipped by special barges to Africa, etc. The SMRs would stay on the barges and send power to shore. No fuss, no muss

Highly subsidized, very expensive, environment-uglifying, bird/bat/sea fauna/tourism/fishery/viewshed-destroying, weather-dependent, variable/intermittent, grid-disturbing, expensive-electricity-producing wind/solar/battery systems do not qualify.

https://www.windtaskforce.org/profiles/blogs/high-cost-kwh-of-w-s-s...

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Russian SMR Projects under Construction

The RITM-200N is the land-based version of Rosatom's RITM-200 small modular reactor (SMR) series.

It is designed as a modular solution for providing heat and electricity to remote industrial clusters, mining operations, and data centers. 

A single RITM-200N unit provides the following capacities:

Thermal Capacity:  190 MW

Electrical Capacity: Up to 55 MW

Multiple units can form a Small Nuclear Power Plant (SNPP) with a total electrical output of up to 330 MW

Performance: availability reaching up to 98%

Turnkey Capital Costs

As of early 2026, the turnkey capital costs for RITM-based land plants are as follows:

Current Target: Rosatom's stated goal is to bring capital expenditures down to a competitive range of $3,500/ kW of 4,500 kW by 2030

Project Examples:

1) Ust-Kuyga (Yakutia): The plant is intended to provide power for mining and local usage. The first land-based unit is under construction and expected to start power generation in 2028.

2) Uzbekistan: A project for a six-unit SNPP is in the implementation phase.

Long-term Economics: Learning curve effects are expected to bring electricity production prices down to 5 to 6 c/kWh by mid 1930s, which is comparable to large-scale coal and large-scale nuclear